History

Reportedly Ben Bernie came up with the concept for the song's lyrics – although he is not the accredited lyricist – after meeting Dr. George Thaddeus Brown in New York City: Dr. Brown, a longtime member of the State House of Representatives for Georgia, told Bernie about Dr. Brown's daughter Georgia Brown and how subsequent to the baby girl's birth on August 11, 1911 the Georgia General Assembly had issued a declaration that she was to be named Georgia after the state, an anecdote which would be directly referenced by the song's lyric: "Georgia claimed her – Georgia named her."

The tune was first recorded on March 19, 1925, by bandleader Ben Bernie, resulting in a five-week number one for Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra.[1]

One of the most popular versions of "Sweet Georgia Brown" was recorded in 1949 by Brother Bones and His Shadows and later adopted as the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team in 1952.

The Beatles as a backup band for singer Tony Sheridan. The first version was recorded on May 24, 1962, in Hamburg, Germany, using the original lyrics and released in Germany. The second was released in 1964 during the wave of Beatlemania with Sheridan having re-recorded the vocals with tamer lyrics and the additional verse: "In Liverpool she even dares/to criticize the Beatles' hair/With their whole fan-club standing there/oh Sweet Georgia Brown."

The period from the end of the First World War until the start of the Depression in 1929 is known as the "Jazz Age". Jazz had become popular music in America, although older generations considered the music immoral and threatening to cultural values. Dances such as the Charleston and the Black Bottom were very popular during the period, and jazz bands typically consisted of seven to twelve musicians. Important orchestras in New York were led by Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman and Duke Ellington. Many New Orleans jazzmen had moved to Chicago during the late 1910s in search of employment; among others, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and Jelly Roll Morton recorded in the city. However, Chicago's importance as a center of jazz music started to diminish toward the end of the 1920s in favor of New York.In the early years of jazz, record companies were often eager to decide what songs were to be recorded by their artists. Popular numbers in the 1920s were pop hits such as "Sweet Georgia Brown", "Dinah" and "Bye Bye Blackbird". The first jazz artist to be given some liberty in choosing his material was Louis Armstrong, whose band helped popularize many of the early standards in the 1920s and 1930s.Some compositions written by jazz artists have endured as standards, including Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Ain't Misbehavin'". The most recorded 1920s standard is Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish's "Stardust". Several songs written by Broadway composers in the 1920s have become standards, such as George and Ira Gershwin's "The Man I Love" (1924), Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" (1927) and Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love?" (1929). However, it was not until the 1930s that musicians became comfortable with the harmonic and melodic sophistication of Broadway tunes and started including them regularly in their repertoire.

Beatles Bop – Hamburg Days is a compilation album of the 1961 recording of Tony Sheridan and The Beatles released by Bear Family Records in 2001. To date, this is the most complete collection of the recordings done with producer Bert Kaempfert for Polydor (excluding the other recordings featured on the My Bonnie/The Beatles' First albums that were done by other musicians under "The Beat Brothers" name)—featuring both mono and stereo mixes of the album. The album was released in a standard two-CD jewel box with a 99-page booklet as well as a Deluxe Edition packaged in an LP-sized box set which included a 120-page hardcover book which featured rare photos, documents, single picture sleeves and historical notes.

Ben Bernie and All the Lads is a short film made by Lee de Forest in the De Forest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film features Ben Bernie conducting his band All The Lads, and features pianist Oscar Levant and saxophonist Jack Pettis. At the time of the filming, Ben Bernie and All the Lads were a featured band at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York City.

The film was produced by de Forest at his studio in New York City in 1925. Earlier dates have been claimed, with no hard evidence to support them, but one of the featured songs, "Sweet Georgia Brown", was not copyrighted, published or recorded until 1925.

"Dig" is a bebop jazz standard attributed to Miles Davis. It was recorded on October 5, 1951 for Prestige Records and first released on an album under the same title.

Its chord sequence is almost identical to that of Sweet Georgia Brown by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard, making it a contrafact. Davis second recording of the tune on May 9 the following year, this time for Blue Note, it was called "Donna" and credited to Jackie McLean, who played alto saxophone on both sessions (Young Man with a Horn and Miles Davis Volume 1)."Dig" has also been played by numerous other artists such as Sonny Rollins, Woody Herman, Donald Byrd, Archie Shepp, Joey DeFrancesco, and Fred Firth.

The Harlem Globetrotters are an exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, and comedy in their style of play. Over the years, they have played more than 26,000 exhibition games in 124 countries and territories. The team's signature song is Brother Bones' whistled version of "Sweet Georgia Brown". Their mascot is an anthropomorphized globe named Globie. The team plays over 450 live events worldwide each year. The team is currently owned by Herschend Family Entertainment. The executive offices for the team are located in the Atlanta suburb of Peachtree Corners.

In Their Own Sweet Way is a 1998 studio album by pianist Dave Brubeck and his quintet. Brubeck was accompanied by his four sons on a recording for the first time.The album consists of Brubeck's own compositions, with the exception of the final track, "Sweet Georigia Brown". "We Will All Remember Paul" and "My One Bad Habit" were recorded as tributes to Paul Desmond and Ella Fitzgerald respectively. The composition "Bifocal Blues" was originally called "Bitonal Blues" and humorously rechristened in honour of Brubeck's advanced age.

A contrafact is a musical composition built using the chord progression of a pre-existing song, but with a new melody and arrangement. Typically the original tune's progression and song form will be reused but occasionally just a section will be reused in the new composition. This article is a list of notable contrafacts by jazz artists.

Maceo Pinkard (June 27, 1897 – July 21, 1962) was an American composer, lyricist, and music publisher. Among his compositions is "Sweet Georgia Brown", a popular standard for decades after its composition and famous as the theme of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.

Pinkard was inducted in the National Academy of Popular Music, Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

My Bonnie is a 1962 album by English rock and roll singer-songwriter and musician Tony Sheridan. Sheridan, then playing in clubs in Hamburg with the Beatles, was discovered by producer Bert Kaempfert and subsequently signed with him to record. Sheridan recorded several songs with the Beatles, two of which were later released as a single. Further recordings without the Beatles filled out the album. Because of the later fame of the Beatles, the material has been repackaged several times.

"Nobody's Child" is a song written by Cy Coben and Mel Foree. It was first recorded by Hank Snow in 1949 and it became one of his standards, although it did not chart for him. The song has been covered a number of times in the UK; it was on Lonnie Donegan's first album in 1956 (which went to #2 as an album in the UK), it was covered by Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers (The Beatles) in 1961 in Hamburg, and in 1969 Karen Young took the song to #6 on the UK charts and used it as the title track on her album. In 1969 Hank Williams Jr. did a version of it that made it to #46 on the US Country charts. The Traveling Wilburys' 1990 version made it to #44 on the UK charts.

The song lyrics are about an orphan whom no one wants to adopt because he is blind:

Pomade (; French pommade) is a greasy, waxy, or a water-based substance that is used to style hair. Pomade generally gives the user's hair a shiny and slick appearance. It lasts longer than most hair care products, often requiring multiple washes to completely remove. The original pomade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries consisted mainly of bear fat or lard. Lanolin, beeswax, and petroleum jelly have been used extensively in the manufacture of modern pomades. Stiffening properties of pomades make sculptured hairstyles such as the pompadour possible; while long lasting moisturizing properties make it popular with individuals with Afro-textured hair.

The ragtime progression is a chord progression characterized by a chain of secondary dominants following the circle of fifths, named for its popularity in the ragtime genre, despite being much older. Also typical of parlour music, its use originated in classical music and later spread to American folk music. Growing, "by a process of gradual accretion. First the dominant chord acquired its own dominant...This then acquired its dominant, which in turn acquired yet another dominant, giving":It can be represented in Roman numeral analysis as

or

In C major this is

Most commonly found in its four-chord version (including the chord in parentheses). This may be perceived as a, "harder, bouncier sounding progression," than the diatonic vi–ii–V7–I (in C: Am–Dm–G7–C). Play The three-chord version (II–V–I) is "related to the cadential progression IV–V–I...in which the V is tonicized and stabilized by means of II with a raised third."The progression is an example of centripetal harmony, harmony which leads to the tonic and an example of the circle progression, a progression along the circle of fourths. Though creating or featuring chromaticism, the bass (if the roots of the chords), and often the melody, are pentatonic. (major pentatonic on C: C, D, E, G, A) Contrastingly, Averill argues that the progression was used because of the potential it offered for chromatic pitch areas.Variations include the addition of minor seventh chords before the dominant seventh chords, creating overlapping temporary ii–V–I relationships through ii–V–I substitution:

since Bm7–E7–A is a ii–V–I progression, as is Em7–A7–D and so on. Play

Robert Porcher (; born July 30, 1969) is a former American football defensive end. He played college football for Willie Jeffries at South Carolina State University. He played for the Detroit Lions his entire professional career. He retired before the 2004 season with 95.5 career sacks. Porcher has been involved in the Detroit community since his retirement. He opened 3 businesses in Downtown Detroit: Detroit Breakfast House & Grill, Sweet Georgia Brown, and Seldom Blues.. The Businesses filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. Porcher is perhaps best recognized as a standout with the Detroit Lions. A 6-foot-3, 275-pound defensive-end, Porcher was a dominant pass-rush specialist and defensive leader.

During much of his 13-year playing career, he was one of the league's most productive and feared defensive ends. Originally a first-round draft choice in 1992 from South Carolina State University, Porcher played in 187 games (third all-time in Detroit history), and set a team record with 95.5 quarterback sacks during his career. He led Detroit in sacks eight times (also a Detroit record). He also became the first Lion to record double-digit sack totals in four consecutive seasons (1996–99).

Porcher earned trips to the Pro Bowl in 1998, 2000 and 2002. He also finished his career with 24 career games notching more than one sack. From 1996-01, Porcher garnered 68 sacks during that six-year period - which was the second-highest in the NFL during that span. His 673 career tackles are ranked seventh in Detroit Lions’ history.

Off the field, Porcher became actively involved in the community. His foundation for cancer research and relief fund raised thousands of dollars for programs at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Lions annual Man of the Year award is named the "Robert Porcher Man of the Year" in honor of his tremendous contributions to the community, especially in Detroit.

Porcher is now an entrepreneur, with various business interests - most notably food/hospitality in downtown Detroit: Detroit Breakfast House & Grill, Sweet Georgia Brown, and Seldom Blues.

Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps (also known as "Spirit") is a World Class competitive drum and bugle corps. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Spirit of Atlanta is a member corps of Drum Corps International (DCI).

Tempo Records was a mid-20th century United States based record label headquartered in Hollywood, California. It was run by Irving Fogel. Tempo bridged the 78 rpm, 45 rpm and 33​1⁄3 rpm generations, releasing discs in all three formats.Tempo's roster included jazz harpist Robert Maxwell, cornetist Doc Evans, clarinetist Sid Phillips, Novachord virtuoso Lloyd Sloop, violinist Joe Venuti, Hammond organist Herb Kern, and pianist Ben Light.Tempo recorded the version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" that was used as the theme song for the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.

The Beatles' First is the first British packaging of the 1962 German album by Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers called My Bonnie. It was recorded in Hamburg in 1961. It has been released in 1964, 1967 and 2004.

We're All Together Again for the First Time is a 1973 live album by Dave Brubeck and his quintet recorded at various locations in Europe. The album peaked at 20 on the Billboard Top Jazz Charts."Truth", "Unfinished Woman" and "Take Five" were recorded at the Berliner Philharmonie, "Koto Song" was recorded at the Paris Olympia and "Rotterdam Blues" and "Sweet Georgia Brown" at the De Doelen concert hall in Rotterdam.

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